Being Well-Born: An Introduction to EugenicsGuyer, Michael F. (Michael Frederic)
Philosophy
Being Well-Born: An Introduction to Eugenics
Guyer, Michael F. (Michael Frederic)
Eugenics; Genetics
=Education of Women in Eugenics Needed.--=One of the most crying needs of
the present is the awakening and educating of women to the significance of
the known facts. For they are perhaps the greatest sufferers, and once
informed, as a mere matter of safety if for no other reason, they will see
the necessity of demanding a clean bill of health on the part of their
prospective mates. Furthermore in the last analysis woman is the decisive
factor in race betterment, for it is she who says the final yea or nay
which decides marriage and thus determines in large measure the qualities
which will be possessed by her children. Above all, young women must come
to realize that the fast or dissipated young man, no matter how
interestingly or romantically he may be depicted by the writer of fiction,
is in reality unsound physically, and is an actual and serious danger to
his future wife and children.
=Much Yet to Be Done.--=But plain as is our duty regarding the application
of facts already known, when we consider that the student of heredity has
made only a beginning, it is equally evident that he must be urged on in
his quest for new facts, and the establishment of new principles. There is
imperative need to carry on proper experiments with plants and animals, to
collect necessary data regarding man, and for what is scarcely less
important, the publication of the facts already acquired so that the
public may be guided aright.
Just at present it is of the utmost importance to secure more trustworthy
statistics in order that we may intelligently go about instituting
suitable restrictive measures for undesirable human strains. We must know
the exact number and kinds of feeble-minded, epileptic and insane in our
population, and we must have more insight into the personal status and
pedigrees of our delinquents and criminals. For purposes of rational
procedure such information is indispensable. Much can be done by
hospitals, "homes" and penal institutions by determining and recording
more accurately all obtainable facts regarding the ancestry of their
charges. Moreover, in such states as Wisconsin, where the state hospitals
for the insane have each an "after-care-agent," the duties of such
officers might well include the collection of more adequate data regarding
the hereditary aspects of their patient's condition. And lastly, if in
every census, whether state or national, it were made an important part of
the work to secure accurate vital statistics, particularly as they pertain
to human heredity, the contribution toward enabling us ultimately to
purge the blood of our nation of certain forms of suffering, degeneracy
and crime would be inestimably great.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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